{"id":8298,"date":"2012-02-25T02:33:24","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T00:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/preview-us-top-court-to-hear-corporate-human-rights-case\/"},"modified":"2012-02-25T02:33:24","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T00:33:24","slug":"preview-us-top-court-to-hear-corporate-human-rights-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/preview-us-top-court-to-hear-corporate-human-rights-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview-US top court to hear corporate human rights case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* At issue is reach of 1789 US law used to sue corps<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Lawsuit accuses Shell of aiding Nigerian rights abuses<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Ruling expected by the end of June<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By James Vicini<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) &#8211; The Supreme Court<br \/>\n will weigh next week whether corporations can be sued<br \/>\nin the United States for suspected complicity in human rights<br \/>\nabuses abroad, in a case being closely<br \/>\nwatched by businesses concerned about long and costly<br \/>\nlitigation.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The high court on Tuesday will consider the reach<br \/>\nof a 1789 U.S. law that had been largely dormant until 1980,<br \/>\nwhen human rights lawyers started using it, at first to sue<br \/>\nforeign government officials. Then, over the next 20 years, the<br \/>\nlawyers used the law to target multinational corporations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The case before the court pits the Obama<br \/>\nadministration and human rights advocates against large<br \/>\ncompanies and foreign governments over allegations<br \/>\nthat Royal Dutch Shell Plc helped Nigeria<br \/>\n crush oil exploration protests in the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Administration attorneys and lawyers for the plaintiffs<br \/>\n contend corporations can be held accountable in U.S.<br \/>\ncourts for committing or assisting foreign governments in<br \/>\ntorture, executions or other human rights abuses.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for corporations argue that<br \/>\nonly individuals, such as company employees or managers involved<br \/>\nin the abuse, can be sued, a position adopted by a<br \/>\nU.S. appeals court in New York. Other courts ruled corporations<br \/>\ncan be held liable.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* At issue is reach of 1789 US law used to sue corps * Lawsuit accuses Shell of aiding Nigerian rights abuses * Ruling expected by the end of June By James Vicini WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) &#8211; The Supreme Court will weigh next week whether corporations can be sued in the United States for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}